Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Well, I have not seen the letter, but I will once I have ferreted it out. We are not padding anything out—we do not need to, because there are about 600,000 vacancies now in jobcentres up and down the country and we are doing our level best to help people of all descriptions, including those who have disabilities, most of whom would genuinely like to seek and find work. We are working with them to help them get the kind of job that can change their lives, rather than parking them for many years in a row, as Labour did.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

With so many young people still in unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, does the Secretary of State not think it anomalous that young people can get support in higher education but not in further education?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is not true really, because young people can get help in further education. Under jobseeker’s allowance, traineeships allow up to 30 hours’ training per week—we have made that more generous, because under the previous Government the figure was only 16 hours. For others, two to eight weeks’ full-time training is allowed, depending on the duration of the jobseeker’s allowance. It is one thing to come up with a policy, but another to come up with a policy answering a question that nobody has ever asked.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Gentleman spoke with gusto, but that was all he spoke with, because those are not the facts. Long-term unemployment has gone down and more people are in work than ever before. Perhaps he should have read the figures before he stood up to speak.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister spoke of more women than ever in work, which is actually a reflection of the fact that there are more women of working age. She should look at other figures. For the first time in more than 15 years, the gender pay gap is rising, not falling. That is a reflection of women working below their pay grade, training and education, in part-time, low-paid work. What will she do about that?

[Esther McVey]

I have two figures for the hon. Lady. She is correct that there are record numbers, but I also said that there are record rates for women, which is different. That shows that our long-term economic plan is working. There are more women in work than ever before.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

It is very important for the families and loved ones of people who are terminally ill to make sure that we get the PIP payment through as fast as possible. The period was too long; we have got it down now, and we need to get it down more. I said to the Select Committee that the proportion should be below 10%. Working with Macmillan, we are going to a PDF as well as a paper-based system for the 2%, but it is very important that we get that right, and that is why I have changed the rules.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Mr Speaker, you will remember that during exchanges at the last Work and Pensions questions, the Secretary of State said that Manchester had spent very little of its discretionary housing allocation. I wonder whether he wants to use this opportunity to clarify that allegation, given that only two days later, his Department granted Manchester city council an extra £200,000 of discretionary housing payment in recognition that its money was nearly spent.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I stand by the figures I gave the hon. Lady, and I also stand by the fact that Manchester—[Interruption.] No, the figures I gave her were the halfway cut for the year, when she said that it had already overspent—[Interruption.] No, she cannot run away from it. She said that it had overspent, and the reality is that it had not overspent. Since then, it has asked for more money. We have a pot, and we have allowed it to have more money. That is the point of the discretionary housing payment. Welcome to the world of decision making.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It does. The reality is that about 71% have spent less than half of their discretionary budgets by the half-way cut of the year, and politicians should always be careful about using individual cases and making political capital out of what are often human tragedies.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State should be careful about throwing around accusations of incompetence in local authorities. I was going to ask a different question, but I want to put it on record, and reassure the Secretary of State, that Manchester city council will be spending all its discretionary housing payments and has recently applied for more. Will he accept that application for more funding?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The answer I gave previously was based on what the hon. Lady actually said previously, which was:

“The money is fast running out, if it has not already run out”.—[Official Report, 12 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 838.]

At the six-month cut, Manchester city council had spent 28% of the discretionary payments. I suspect that, in reality, the hon. Lady was about to ask me about that, but realised that she could not because she had got it wrong.

Housing Benefit

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

I am going to make progress.

The deficit was £150 billion. How can we address that? The biggest area of public spending is the Department for Work and Pensions. More than half of that budget goes on pensioners and pensioner-related benefits, which we had pledged to protect. That meant that a very substantial budget—the working-age welfare budget—had to be addressed. The biggest income-related benefit is housing benefit. The biggest group of housing benefit recipients comprises social tenants. We are told that the Labour party would have sought to address the budget deficit, but if we are looking to do so, housing benefit for social tenants must be looked at. If we have to make savings in that, where do we do it? We look at spare rooms in the social housing sector.

However, some people legitimately have a need for an additional room or should not be asked to move. The issue of adapted accommodation was raised. We could have dealt with adapted accommodation in two ways. First, we could have written in a long, complicated statutory instrument what is and is not adapted accommodation. Clearly, just a hand rail would not constitute adapted accommodation and a whole extension probably would, but what about the properties in the middle? Given that there are often no records of how much has been spent on adaptation, trying to write that into the law of the land would not have been an effective way to help those in need.

We therefore decided that we would estimate the cost of protecting those with substantially adapted properties—our estimate was £25 million—and allocated the money to local authorities to assist those in need. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) says that it is not enough. Last year, we were told, if I remember rightly, that the discretionary housing payments we had made available for other housing benefits changes were “not enough,” but, at the end of the year, local authorities repaid to the Government £10 million of unspent discretionary housing payments.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I can absolutely guarantee that the Minister will not be getting any of his money back this year from any of the local authorities, and certainly not from Manchester. My constituency has among the highest number of people affected by the bedroom tax in the country. The money is fast running out, if it has not already run out, because there are far more people with adapted homes than there is money to go around. I can guarantee that he will not be getting any money back from Manchester city council this year.

[Steve Webb]

We have estimated £25 million to cover adapted properties. The hon. Lady might have better statistics than the Government on adapted properties, but I suspect that the default position of Labour Members is to say, “It’s not enough; it should be more.”

Let me address the issue directly to respond to the hon. Lady’s point. In 2012-13, we made available £60 million of discretionary housing payments. This year, we have trebled that amount to £180 million. That money is what we might call hard cash for hard cases—the cases to which hon. Members have referred. I say this sincerely to hon. Members: those who raise individual cases should be holding their local authorities to account. The Government have given local authorities the money to help people in need. In fact, we have gone further. Within year, we have allocated an extra £20 million for local authorities to bid for. If they have exhausted, or if they anticipate exhausting, their discretionary housing payments budgets, they can come to the Government for a top-up. So far, barely a dozen local authorities have asked for additional funding.

The hon. Member for Leeds West mentioned the strain being putting on her local authority’s discretionary housing payment. Leaving aside the fact that Leeds has an extraordinarily low rate of home swaps—in other words, is the local authority doing the right thing by its tenants?—it has not asked the Government for a share of the £20 million. If Leeds is so cash-strapped for DHPs, why has it not asked us for the money it says it needs, rather than turning away people it thinks are vulnerable?

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for referring to our policy motion, which is a darn sight better than the one we have been asked to consider by the Opposition. The Government are addressing many of the elements in our conference motion. For example, the motion calls for

“an immediate evaluation of the impact of the policy”

which we are undertaking, and

“A review of the amount allocated to local authorities for the Discretionary Housing Payment Fund”.

[Lucy Powell]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister incorrectly gave figures for last year—the bedroom tax was introduced only in April. I was talking about money that will come back this year. I can guarantee that the Minister will not be getting any money back from Manchester this year—the year of the bedroom tax.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not need any help from those on the back row. That was not a point of order, but the hon. Lady has put her point on the record.

[Steve Webb]

I will come back to that in a moment.

I can assure my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) that we are addressing many of the points raised in the conference motion, not least because the motion congratulates our colleagues on their role in securing additional discretionary housing payments—something they can all be proud of.

The hon. Member for Manchester Central says that I referred to last year’s figures. I did, because we have not got to the end of this year yet. Last year, we stood here and other Opposition Members said about last year’s budget exactly what she has just said. We allocated DHPs for other changes to housing benefits. They said there would not be enough money, but at the end of the year substantial amounts were repaid.

[Lucy Powell]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I have no idea what that gesture means, but last year we allocated just under £1 million to Manchester, of which more than £500,000 was repaid. This year we have allocated nearly £2 million to Manchester to address those concerns. If it finds that it is still short of cash, despite sending back £500,000 last year, we will of course consider an application to our top-up fund, which we have not so far received.

We have heard nothing from the—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is clear that the Government will save money only if people stay put and pay up, which is the fundamental point.

The shortage of housing is no more acute than in Wales, where traditional three-bedroom properties predominate and there is a huge shortage of smaller social properties. Again, the warning back then was that discretionary housing payments were not enough to help the disabled and that housing associations would be left with a burden of debt, and unenviable choices.

All those warnings were ignored by the Government coalition parties. Government Members said that debates such as this one were characterised by exaggeration, that we were painting too bleak a picture and that our predictions were inaccurate. Tragically, those predictions were not wrong.

All Members have constituency cases to quote, so here are just a few of mine from the last couple of weeks. The mother of a disabled child who up to now used the third bedroom as a sensory room for her autistic son, as recommended by a paediatrician, is now struggling to find the extra rent. A divorced father whose two sons normally stay with him during the summer months has had to move because he cannot afford to keep his current home and will no longer have that access to his children. The largest group is the numerous families with disability adaptations to their properties who have no prospect of being moved to smaller accommodation that fits their needs because it would cost far too much to adapt the new properties. It is now clear that the financial “assistance” provided to already cash-strapped local authorities is not enough, as I see every day in my case work.

[Lucy Powell]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jessica Morden]

I would love to, but I am running out of time.

Local housing associations are working hard and using their creativity, doing their best to lessen the impact. From the work I see in my constituency, I realise that they know their tenants and have been in contact with them in the years preceding this situation. The simple fact remains that the vast majority of people hit by the bedroom tax have nowhere to move to within existing social housing provision.

A BBC Wales report earlier this year found four local authorities in Wales, including Monmouthshire, had no one-bedroom properties at all. In Wales, Shelter Cymru has argued that the chronic shortage of one and two-bedroom properties will drive many households into the private rented sector, where the local housing allowance for smaller two-bedroom properties outstrips the rents of three-bedroom social property. The difference is as much as 46% across Wales, and in Newport private rents are 36% higher. One Gwent housing association pointed out that every single private rented property is more expensive than the social rented property.

More damningly still, over the summer my office conducted some research on housing associations in Wales, showing that more than 50% of affected housing association tenants previously not in arrears—these people were always up to date with their rent—have now been plunged into debt and fallen behind on payments, with housing associations in Wales shouldering over £750,000 of extra debt. These are people who were up to date with their rent before April. When even the hon. Member for Monmouth commenting on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee report admitted publicly that the bedroom tax is simply not working in Wales due to the dearth of smaller properties, we know just how badly judged this policy is.

The bedroom tax is a bad and cruel policy. It is forcing people who cannot move into debt. I am thus very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) tabled the motion before us today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

I do not want to see people evicted, but I think that there is a more intelligent way of achieving what the hon. Gentleman and I want to see than merely adopting a slogan. I think that Labour and other councils all over the country are doing their very best to prevent evictions

In Merseyside a year ago, there were 1,378 empty properties run by social landlords; the figure is now 1,956. That is a 40% increase. In Liverpool, rent arrears have already risen by 12.5%, and we are only six months into this policy. We heard a great deal from the Minister about discretionary housing payments. The pot for Liverpool is £1.6 million, but the housing benefit shortfall that has resulted from the introduction of the bedroom tax is £7.5 million. In other words, less than a quarter is available through discretionary housing payments. A lady who came to my surgery last week had just received her second discretionary housing payment, with my support. It will last her until January, but the money simply will not be there in January for her to receive a third payment.

[Lucy Powell]

We heard about Manchester city council’s discretionary housing payment pot. I now have the figures. Manchester has been allocated £1.9 million, and £1.2 million of that has already been spent. Did my hon. Friend gather from the Minister, as I did, that he was guaranteeing that all those who qualified for money from the discretionary housing fund would be able to receive it later in the year?

[Stephen Twigg]

I listened carefully to what the Minister said, and it seemed to me that he was saying exactly that. I should appreciate an answer to my hon. Friend’s question from the Minister. If the needs of the lady in my constituency whom I have just mentioned are the same in January and there is no longer any money left in the pot in Liverpool, will the Government come up with the additional funds that are needed to ensure that those discretionary payments continue?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), who made an excellent contribution.

I am pleased to be called to speak in this debate and I am proud that the Labour party now has a commitment to axing this appalling policy. I am proud of Opposition Members’ contributions to this debate, which stand in stark contrast to some of the drivel we heard from the Government Benches, much of which showed a lack of understanding of and basic research into how this policy is being delivered on the ground.

One example of that was in the contribution of the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who said people should simply work an extra three hours a week to pay for this. If she knew the policy, she would be aware that those in work and receiving housing benefit who work an extra three hours a week will lose 85% of that extra income to pay for their rent and council tax. Therefore they would still have to pay the bedroom tax.

I am the MP for Manchester Central and my constituency has the highest number of people affected by the bedroom tax in the country—over 4,000. That is not just a number; it is people struggling desperately as a result of this unjust policy.

I have three main criticisms of this policy, and they build on the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich: it is a morally wrong and corrupt policy; it costs more than it saves; and it does not even work. By any measure, that is a pretty damning indictment of a policy.

It is morally wrong because it is such a blunt instrument and it is punishing all sorts of vulnerable people who have done nothing wrong. We have heard many examples from colleagues, charting the human cost of this disastrous policy. I want to highlight one other.

Elizabeth has a very disabled son, Ryan. Their case has been highlighted by the Manchester Evening News and the Daily Mirror, both of which have been running excellent campaigns against the bedroom tax. Ryan is a disabled adult and requires around-the-clock care, including overnight care. He is not excluded from the bedroom tax policy, however, because he is not the tenant of the property. Therefore, they are subject to the bedroom tax. After many weeks and months of anxious worrying, Elizabeth finally, after my intervention, was awarded the discretionary housing money. However, this does not take away from the fact that she is not sure what is going to happen next year or the year after that. That is the kind of anxiety people are facing. On the discretionary housing payment, I am delighted that the Minister has today said that if more claimants qualify but the £1.9 million that Manchester city council has received is not enough, the Government will guarantee those payments.

This policy also costs more than it saves, as is highlighted by the case of my constituent, Alan. He is in his late-50s and he has worked for most of his life. He lives in a two-bedroom property because no one-bedroom properties were available for him. He was made redundant and is now on benefits of £71.70 a fortnight. His social housing costs £60 a week and he has been asked to pay the bedroom tax out of that money. If he wants to move to the private sector, which is the only real option for him, that will cost him at least £100 a week in rent, which the housing benefit bill will have to pay. So that is going to take costs up, not down.

The final point I wish to make is that this policy does not even work. Many Government Members have talked about how it deals with overcrowding and people on the housing waiting list. In Manchester, 19,000 people are on that list and that figure has not moved one jot since this policy was introduced, because all the slack of available property is being taken up by people doing housing swaps. The only properties becoming available are two-bedroom properties in blocks of flats, which are unsuitable for families with children. So those properties are going to people in band 5—people who are not most in need. Those who are most in need are being pushed further and further down the waiting list.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong speech, in which she mentioned families with children. Did she share my shock at Lord Freud’s comment that families who are separated should get a sofa bed to deal with the problem of being hit by the bedroom tax? Was that not a shocking thing to say about the situation of families in this country?

[Lucy Powell]

It was a shocking thing to say. It showed a complete failure to understand what family life is like and to understand that many fathers—I thought the Conservatives claimed to be the party of the fathers—have contact with their children only if they have a spare bedroom for them to stay in, so they will be losing that contact. That is a disgraceful aspect of this policy.

Perhaps if the Government had done a little more research, analysis and modelling before introducing this proposal, they might have foreseen some of these knock-on consequences. Labour Members are all for looking at how we can deal with some of the issues relating to under-occupancy and housing shortage, but this sort of brutal, blunt instrument does nothing to address that—in fact, it does quite the opposite. We need a long-term strategy bringing together the housing associations, other policy makers and tenants to work out how we can best use a carrot and stick approach to deal with under-occupancy. What we have from this Government is a morally corrupt policy that does not work and is going to cost the taxpayer even more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is spot-on. That is exactly what we said we would do—a recalibration; a rebalancing of the economy—to get more people into private enterprise and to make fewer people state dependent. We have done that with 1.4 million jobs in the private sector. Opposition Members said that it was not possible. This is down to an environment that we have set and the great British businesses that have provided this employment.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to be back. The Minister will be aware that a key barrier to many long-term unemployed women returning to work is the prohibitively high cost of child care. What is she doing to ensure that work will always pay once universal credit is implemented, given the concerning findings of the Resolution Foundation published yesterday showing the opposite to be the case?

[Esther McVey]

I am very proud of our Government’s policies, which have got a record number of women into work and supported them into businesses and in setting up their own businesses. Of those in part-time work, 80% have chosen that work, some of which fits in with their life balance. We are supporting women with child care. That is a difficult job, especially as the price of child care went through the roof under Labour. We are particularly supporting them under universal credit, and, as I said, all credit to this Government.

Jobs and Social Security

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. It is a huge privilege, if a little daunting, to be making my maiden speech in the House today as the new Member for my home city of Manchester.

I should first like to pay tribute to Tony Lloyd, not just because it is the custom, but because he is a brilliant man and a very dear friend of mine. Tony was first elected to this House in 1983 as the hon. Member for Stretford, taking over as the Member for Manchester Central in 1997 following boundary changes. Through his 29 years’ service as an MP, he always remained absolutely rooted in his constituency and home city, providing a first-class service to his constituents and making a real impact on the quality of their lives by ensuring they got the support, services and investment they so badly needed.

Tony married that local commitment with a distinguished and long parliamentary career, particularly in the field of foreign affairs. He was also extremely popular among his colleagues, becoming the chair of the parliamentary Labour party for six years. It is a tricky position to hold at the best of times, but Tony managed to achieve it under three different party leaders.

Like me, Tony is a proud Mancunian, but I have to say that there was one area on which we disagreed. Thankfully, the passing of the baton from Tony also marks a new era in Manchester: the passing of the Championship from the red side to the blue, and long may City’s reign continue. I know Tony will be sorely missed in this place, but I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing him well in his important new position.

In preparing for this speech, I also looked back at the maiden speech of Tony’s predecessor, Bob Litherland. Bob was another proud Mancunian and he was also elected in a by-election, just after the 1979 general election. In his maiden speech, like me he felt compelled to speak early on in a debate on the effects of the Tory Government’s Budget, as it had been a big issue in his campaign. He said:

“The people of Manchester Central will be hit hardest, because they are the people who need the facilities and who cannot afford any more cuts to their standard of living.”—[Official Report, 24 October 1979; Vol. 972, c. 471-4.]

His words would have been just as relevant in today’s debate.

As with by-elections today, turnout was relatively low in Bob’s election. However, the turnout in my election, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sorry to say, was very low indeed. There were a number of difficult and complicated factors at play, but still, we in this House should not be satisfied with falling voter engagement and growing apathy. The previously lowest turnout in a by-election was in the Leeds Central by-election of 1999, a record that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) was quick to relinquish when he phoned to congratulate me the next day.

As the granddaughter of Irish immigrants on one side and a mining family on the other, my family are hugely proud of my achievements here today. I was born on the day of the second general election of 1974. My dad would not take my mum to the hospital until after our local polling station in Moss Side had opened, where he duly declared that my mum was in labour and voting Labour. Some thought this marked my future destiny, but my beliefs and conviction were actually shaped by the fact that it would be nearly 23 years before Labour would next win a general election.

Growing up in Manchester in the ’80s, I was surrounded by social injustice and lost opportunity. At school, we shared old and poor resources, leaving many pupils behind. Our city was dying, and to succeed people needed to get out of there, and fast. Members of our families died prematurely, or suffered unnecessarily. Too many of my school friends lived in cramped and poor homes.

The Manchester of today is a very different place indeed. An urban renaissance, begun by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) when he was the leader of the council and then realised by Sir Richard Leese, was accelerated by the investment and measures brought in by the previous Labour Government. Manchester Central now boasts one of the best hospitals in the country, the Manchester Royal infirmary; all our secondary schools are new or rebuilt, raising attainment significantly; we have a network of Sure Start centres, which we are keeping open; housing stock has been transformed with major redevelopments in Beswick, Ardwick, Ancoats and the city centre; areas formerly associated with gangland culture, such as Moss Side and Hulme, are unrecognisable and fast becoming highly desirable places to live; and, perhaps most importantly in the context of this debate, we have a city that is growing, attracting new businesses and residents, where public and private work together to generate jobs and growth.

Nowhere epitomises that partnership more than the Sharp project in Newton Heath. In the shell of an old factory now sits a buzzing and successful digital media hub, housing tens of digital start-ups. Sharp has recently announced a major expansion into West Gorton, creating 400 new jobs, as well as a new apprenticeship scheme for local young people. Cities around the world are trying to emulate this success. The private sector alone has not, and could not, ever spontaneously create such an environment. It was local political leadership, working in partnership with the private sector, that has delivered jobs and growth.

It is this vision and partnership that ensures Manchester pulls above its weight in other areas too. Manchester’s audacious bid for the Olympics, followed by a successful bid for the Commonwealth games in 2002, has left a lasting legacy for my constituency, and indeed for the rest of the country. The national cycling centre, a world-class aquatic centre, sports city and, now, the only indoor competition BMX track in the world are all in Manchester Central. They are all used by local young people and they all contributed to Britain’s recent success in the Olympics.

For all that transformation and recent achievement as a city, however, challenges remain and, I fear, might get worse over the coming years. A child born in Manchester Central is still likely to live five years less than the UK average; 50% of children in Manchester Central live in poverty; long-term youth unemployment is high and rising; too many families are in underemployment with not enough hours to make ends meet; wages are stagnant and bills getting higher; access to quality, affordable child care is getting harder; the vulnerable and disabled are seeing their services and support cut; and places such as Collyhurst, Clayton, Newton Heath and Openshaw are still in desperate need of regeneration.

In summary, Manchester Central has the third-highest level of child poverty in the country; the fourth-lowest life expectancy; and the 10th-highest level of unemployment in the UK. And yet Manchester received the fifth-worst local government settlement last year, resulting in £170 million of cuts over two years, compared with no cuts in other much more affluent authorities. It is this sort of unfairness that makes my constituents really angry. But, for all these depressing statistics, Manchester Central is a fantastic constituency with many diverse communities, all of which are united in their pride for the city and themselves. They do not want handouts or sympathy—just a fair shot and a fair playing field. Manchester has great culture, sport and history, too, and I am sure the whole House will agree that Manchester Central has the best conference venue in the country.

So, next time my hon. Friends are in Manchester, I recommend they venture out of the secure area to explore what Manchester has to offer: cafes and bars in the northern quarter, Chinatown, the gay village perhaps, museums, galleries, shops, music and much, much more. I am incredibly proud to be the Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament for Manchester Central, the modern-day home of the co-operative movement, and I am proud to be Labour’s first-ever woman MP for my home city. I will do my very best to stand up for Manchester and all of its communities in the House and beyond. Thank you very much.